OK so you would have seen yesterday’s post where I finally moved on the Surface 2 with its screen issues and now have a shiny bright Surface 3.

Problem.

OK it’s nothing like before, but the issue I now have is that the screen turns off when I close the cover (as expected), but it stays off when the cover is opened! I Googled this and didn’t find any other people with this problem. I’ve done all the updates, restarted the machine a few times but to no avail. As we speak I’m with Microsoft support who were looking for HyperV in the Windows Features (it wasn’t there), they have run a sfc /scannow operation (which found nothing) and are now doing a device refresh.

I hope this doesn’t turn into another case of a changeover device. I’ve just installed a brand new screen protector! (Which BTW isn’t the problem because 1) it was working before and 2) it still registers when the cover is closed).

The touch screen issue on the Surface 2 never properly went away. It would work for a while, then often after a restart it would stop working. About 50% of the time it would come back after the battery ran flat, so I got through the last ~6 months by keeping it powered up whenever the screen was working, and if it did go flat and the screen stopped responding to touch I’d let it go flat again and try again.

I had already recommended my brother to purchase a S3 which he did and he was very happy with it. So when it spent the last month with the screen stuck not working something had to happen. I got approval through work to upgrade to the Surface 3 so I utilised the extended warranty to get a refund rather than just change over to another S2 unit.

So I’ve now got a 64Gb Surface 3 with a grey Type Cover, Surface pen, video adapter and (aftermarket) screen protector. Time will tell how this one behaves!

In last week’s post about our unplanned week at home, I promised I’d expand on an incident which occurred on Friday at a Hungry Jack’s restaurant.

Where battles are won and lost…

For those who came in late, I had the kids to myself for a couple of days while my wife was interstate for a family funeral. We’d paid a visit to the hospital and, having stayed longer than we planned, found it was time to eat and we were still on our way home with no dinner started at home. On a whim I stopped at HJ’s to grab a bite and ate by the indoor playground.

A small four year old boy (we’ll call him Charlie) was near our table and was slightly interfering with our peace so his parents told him to move away. Charlie showed no signs of having heard, much less acting upon, his parents’ request, though he quickly bored with us and moved back to the playground on his own volition. Twice more his parents issued instructions while he was on the playground, both of which Charlie ignored to which his parents responded by doing precisely nothing.

For months we’ve been looking forward to Family Camp. It’s a week-long camp with other Christadelphians for parents with young children, and it’s all about helping each other raise children who learn respect, care for others and above all, love God. We’ve been twice before and loved it, so booked into this one as soon as we could.

Why do we discipline children? While there may be many reasons, ultimately I believe:

We discipline to teach children there are consequences to their actions.

We know instinctively that everything we do has some consequence, even at the simplest levels. If we turn on a tap over an empty glass, the consequence is the glass is filled with water. If we push a tall box, the consequence is that the box falls and possibly causes something to break. As adults we know that we are responsible for dealing with the consequences of our actions, but that’s not something children understand. As very young children we’ve done everything for them, so they see us clean up their mess at the table and put them to bed when they’re tired. They can’t take responsibility for their actions when they’re very young, but as adults they will do this almost 100% of the time. So between infancy and adulthood they need to progressively learn this.

I’ve always been a fan of home-grown produce and supporting local producers whenever possible, and around this time of year for the last couple we’ve bought a few boxes of citrus from Fresh Citrus Direct. They’re a family citrus farm in the SA Riverland who sell their produce direct to the public rather than being forced to dance to the supermarkets’ tune where in most cases the supplier bears the cost of their ‘low’ prices to the customer. Some of our friends at church have property on the Murray and have had to dig up perfectly good orange trees because they can’t compete with the cheap imports from overseas. So I’m keen to support the producers who are left.

Seven months on how do I find the Surface 2? I’m still happy with it. The bugs I had with the screen seem to have gone. I’m guessing since others have commented on the problem it must be a software glitch, not an issue with just my unit, so it could have been fixed through a software update. It only came back once when I put a screen protector back on, but since that’s been gone so has the problem.

This afternoon a young boy about 6 and his mum got on my bus. He walked in front of her as they walked up the aisle. His mum came to a vacant seat just past the turntable and said ‘here’ to her son, to which he responded loudly ‘NO HERE!’ and kept walking to the back. His mum shook her head in annoyance, and with a huff meekly followed him to the back.

Hands up who sees a problem here.

Does it really matter, in this case, where they sit? No. But what does matter is that she issued an instruction, he ignored it and then she allowed his word to overrule here. So the issue is one of authority – who’s in charge, rather than simply a choice of seat.